[I’ve been sitting on this post for about three weeks, trying to decide if I wanted to make it or not. I’ve finally decided it’s time to put it out there, so.]
This essay was originally going to be added to this post about Steve’s dog-tags, but I apparently have a lot of feelings about this and it ended up being ridiculously long and sort of tangential to the original post, so I’m simply linking the two. I’ve divided the essay into three parts: church history, immigration history, and speculation.
Disclaimer: I was raised Protestant (in a non-denominational Stone-Campbell church), and I attended undergrad at a Protestant Christian liberal arts college (also Stone-Campbell). My undergraduate degree included church history, but I am definitely not an expert, so I’ve included lots of Wikipedia links to compensate. I am currently attending a Catholic university for my masters, but again, the focus has not been church history (although I have interviewed and transcribed interviews with Catholic priests from the Brooklyn Diocese as part of my classes). I know enough about church history to feel comfortable making this post, but not enough to go into further detail than what is laid out here. If I have made any egregious errors in regards to either branch’s history, please drop me a note so I can correct them.
Tag: mcu
From The AV Club, regarding Kevin Feige’s statement that we still have to wait for a lead female protagonist in a Marvel film.
Also, that is the clearest definition of “patriarchy” I have read in a long time.
An Open Letter to Kevin Feige
Dear Mr Feige,
You don’t know me, but I know you. I know you because you are the individual whose signature determines the future of a franchise that is dear to my heart, on which I have spent much of my hard-earned money. I know you because over the years you have made me and my sisters and the brothers of my sisters promises that have yet to be fulfilled.
Mr. Feige, when you say you won’t be “swayed by the backlash”—as if it is a negative thing, for billions of people to want for you to show that they, too, can be superheroes—what reason then should we have to be swayed to see what movies you do deem worthy of your attention? What justification do you have that we have not already heard countless times before and which has not already been disproven?
When, Mr. Feige, is “the right time”? When The Hunger Games: Catching Fire grossed over $800 million the world over—nearly as much as The Avengers and more than Iron Man 3—was that not the right time? When Life of Pi made more than the first Iron Man, and Django Unchained more than The Wolverine—was that not the right time? Or was the right time not when the first Pacific Rim made more money than the first X-Men?
When will the right time be? How many years? What does it look like? Quantify it for me, please, Mr. Feige, so that I might understand. You say you want a Marvel movie every year: what year, then, will we finally begin to see ourselves in starring roles in your films?
Do you believe piracy is wrong, Mr. Feige? Do you believe theft is wrong? Then how do you justify your constant thefts from us, Mr. Feige? You steal from us when you dangle vague promises in front of our noses and refuse to deliver. You steal from us when you promise us that our stories will receive adequate attention in movies that continue to give precedence to white men. You steal our hopes, our loyalty, and our money, and you do not deliver.
How familiar are you with statistics, Mr. Feige? Are you aware that the Motion Picture Association of America determined that 51% of the movie-going audience in 2013 was not white, and that 52% was female? And that is not even taking into account the rest of the world, Mr. Feige, which is far more diverse racially than this country is. The rest of the world accounted for the majority of The Avengers’s total gross earnings.
I work in retail, Mr. Feige. I see your consumer base. When a little girl approaches me after watching The Avengers because she wants to buy Black Widow comics, do you propose to tell her she is any less deserving of seeing herself reflected on the big screen as the little boys you feature in your films, inspiring and being inspired in turn by their heroes brought to life? When my female friends approach me to talk about their newly roused interest in comics and their restraining fear of the reception they’ll receive upon walking into a comic shop: do you wish me to tell them to stay away from the comic shops, Mr. Feige?
It’s time you start treating your female fans and your fans of color with respect, Mr. Feige. It’s time you start acknowledging that the wealth your franchise has made you and your company was made by people like us: made by women and by people of color who go to see superhero movies because we love superheroes. It’s time to acknowledge that we can be superheroes too—super heroes, not super sidekicks.
We’re ready, Mr. Feige. We’ve been ready. The ball is in your court. We’re waiting.
To answer your question, laire, that silver fox at the end is Tony from Next Avengers, an absolutely adorable and deceptively heartrending kids movie wherein the Avengers are all killed by Ultron and Tony is left alone to raise their children.
AND BUILDS ROBOTS OF HIS DEAD TEAM MATES. YOU ARE LEAVING THAT OUT.
CREEPY, CREEPY ROBOTS
I’d genuinely love to see Armored Adventures Tony drawn in this style, because the AA here is Avengers Assemble, not Armored Adventures. (Maybe with a tragic post-school soul patch, like in a couple of the fics of young Tony that I’ve read.) Love the EMH Tony in particular.
I want to bring some positivity into the world today, because I REALLY want to move away from all this awfulness, so let me talk for a little while about MCU!Pepper Potts.
Pepper Potts is a woman whom I have absolutely nothing in common with. She is tall, graceful, and effortlessly feminine; I am a petite punk girl with a lot of tattoos. She enjoys expensive high heels; I spend a lot of time wearing tactical boots. I’m not her, and I don’t aspire to be her, and in the face of women like Natasha Romanoff and Peggy Carter, who are more obviously admirable for someone like me, it’s easy for her to get overlooked.
But I love Pepper Potts. To me, what stands out about her is the way she negotiates a path between love and necessity. She is a character who consistently offers real kindness to those around her, regardless of their flaws, and also while having to overcome her own impatience: to Tony at his most unbearable, to Maya as Maya betrays her, to “Natalie” after the two of them have been put at odds, to Happy when he’s being ridiculous. You get the sense that what she wants to offer to the world, always, is this kindness.
And I don’t think that kindness ever really abates— but it doesn’t prevent her from doing what needs to be done, even when that’s unpleasant.
Because if we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we’ll avenge it.
Every woman is a queen, and we all have different things to offer.
MCU
knitting in the dark 